


What to Do About Tomorrow

by Shirokokuro



Category: Gintama
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Gintoki POV, Gintoki is a culmination of all my wit, Gintoki: Ew. Where do I join?, Hurt/Comfort, SO. MUCH. ANGST., Shouyou: So I opened a school., character being forced to relive the same day, sassbucket child becomes soft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:15:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29918838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shirokokuro/pseuds/Shirokokuro
Summary: First impressions aren't meant to be this difficult.
Relationships: Sakata Gintoki & Yoshida Shouyou
Kudos: 17





	1. The Memory of Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> A head start on something for the "sword" day of Shouka Sonjuku Week. I'm also on Tumblr at [Shirokokuro](https://shirokokuro.tumblr.com/) where I cry about baby Gintoki sometimes.
> 
> (Translation/historical notes are after the chapters.)

Whenever Gintoki wakes up, the ceiling is dusty clouds and crow wings. Feathers flap, spurring him to full consciousness where he flexes his fingers against the blood-tacked dirt. It’s not a fun realization—where he is. There’s the usual pang of hunger accompanying the corpse decay and ash-sweat mixture clinging to him, and the smell of blood is thick enough to taste.

Pushing himself up with a sigh, Gintoki removes one koban coin from his pocket. He’d found it some time ago. Worth near nothing nowadays, he’s discovered, since probably everyone will suspect it's cheap coming from him, but it serves his purposes well enough.

He flicks it to decide what breakfast’ll be today: Heads and it’s the grave offering an hour out; tails and it’s the meal of a traveler who should be dead a good hour by now.

The coin wavers to a stop in front of the corpse he was sleeping beside.

Tails.

Gintoki scrunches his face and replaces it in the pocket of his sleeve. The traveler’s a sorry state—slipped off a cliff edge with bones poking out every which way. It’s not his favorite place to get grub from, but food’s food, and he _has_ been eating those offerings for a while now.

Maybe he’ll go into town afterward, just to liven things up a bit. Nodding at the plan, Gintoki brushes the soot from his clothes and sets out.

* * *

Osaka’s pretty as far as towns go. It’s managed to get off relatively unscathed from the wars surrounding it—profiting from them, actually, by the way the merchants talk. They’ve got the nerve to complain about more trivial things than life and death, about who married who and taxes.

(“Inflation,” a trader scoffs while his purse disappears unbeknownst to himself. “The economy’s in shambles, and what’re those Tokugawas doin’?”)*

Gintoki juggles the purse in a hand while he munches on dango with the other. ( _Sucker_.) He hums to himself as he walks, heading toward the red light district. There are geishas in training* that way, and it’s fun to watch them scuffle about in their too-tall shoes and bunched-up kimono. One in particular should be going down in spectacular fashion here soon.

Gintoki turns a corner, and…

Just in time.

Hair ornaments are sent flying, scattering against the road while the girl’s doll-like countenance slips to something that’s utterly ridiculous. He’s seen it dozens of times, but Gintoki still laughs so hard that he almost chokes, pointing out the miffed geisha wannabe. The cluster of girls around her glower in turn, a pack of makeup-ed wolves, and he slaps on a mocking face just to see the way their blood boils. He scampers off before they can catch him—as if they could, in those stupid shoes.

A safe distance away, Gintoki exhales happily and tugs off another dango.

This is great. Why doesn’t he come here more often?

That’s when his eyes catch on a woman on the other side of the street. She’s cradling a girl who couldn’t be over four, and their kimono are both byproducts of wealth and good taste, brightly patterned with silk that catches the light. Talking softly, the mother waves one of her toddler’s fists and smiles.

The dango doesn’t taste quite as sweet after that.

* * *

He’d gone to sleep in the streets right there in Osaka, but Gintoki wakes up again in the same place he always does. The sky is pale with a pre-sunrise tint; crows perch on corpses; and an hour out, there’s a man who’s just brought manjuu to his mother’s grave, another who’s just slipped to his death.

Gintoki shrugs off a soldier’s arm as he sits up. Maybe he’ll add Old Man Nakayama’s farm to the list of breakfast options. Last time he’d gone, the coot had gotten a lucky shot in and Gintoki nearly lost a hand. (Night couldn’t come soon enough that day.) But Gintoki thinks he could make off with some radishes this go around.

He flicks the coin with a yawn. It’s a bad toss, though, and the coin comes to a lopsided rest against a man’s leg.

Gintoki blinks at it.

He’s never had an inconclusive roll before.

Crows squawk while he debates with himself. Could be the universes way of telling him to stay here, he guesses, raising his gaze to the still-smoldering battlefield. He’d scavenged everything before he got stuck in this loop so there never was much reason to stick around. Maybe there's still some food he missed?

Gintoki curls around his stomach when it grumbles. Either way, staying here’s no good.

He grabs a nearby sword (Can never be too careful.) and gets to work, turning over bodies with his foot. The stench is worse by the time the sun’s started to rise, a mass of heated flesh and the buzz of fruit flies. Gintoki swats away some of them with a frown as he rummages through the fold of a soldier’s yukata.

“Score,” Gintoki mutters as he retrieves a wrapped onigiri. When he pries the leaves apart, he’s thrilled to find it doesn’t have any blood on it, and he collapses on the man’s chest, quick to shove the food in his mouth. He was starting to get worried: His head’s fuzzy from hunger, and it’d be no fun to faint among a bunch of dead guys.

Moving to take another bite, he freezes when there’s the weight of a hand on his head.

“I came after hearing about a corpse-eating demon. Would that be you?”

* * *

The man’s hair shines from behind.

Gintoki walks a good ways back on the dirt road, suspicious but intrigued as he adjusts the new sword in his grip. He’s never seen this person before, and it’s odd having no framework for how to navigate him. 

The man turns his head in profile, spying him from the corner of his eye. Gintoki opts for a glare ( _Don’t try anything._ ), but the man just smiles. “I suppose, if you’re going to be my student, I should know what to call you….”

“You first.”

The man drifts to a full stop, and Gintoki plants himself a few paces away—enough space to run. “Yoshida Shouyou,” the man introduces with that airhead expression locked in place. He gestures to him as if to say, “Now it’s your turn.”

“Gintoki,” the boy spits.

Shouyou’s unfazed. “Gintoki, huh? Should be easy to remember. Do you have a family name?”

Gintoki doesn’t, but he’s in no mood to admit that. The boy’s eyes flicker to the city looming in the distance, trying to scrounge up something manageable. “Osakata."

He’s pretty sure Shouyou knows he just slapped his own family name together with Osaka, but the man takes it in stride. “Ahh, Sakata?” he hums, and _is he seriously correcting me?_ “Sakata Gintoki.” _He is. He’s correcting me._ “It’s a charming name.”

“Whatever, _Shouyou_ ,” Gintoki huffs, doing his best to make it sound like a cuss. The man grins at that; he seems to think this conversation is going swimmingly when it’s drowning instead.

“Are you hungry? There’s a soba restaurant nearby that I’ve been dying to try.”

Gintoki snaps his jaw open to tell him, “Then die then,” but of course, his stomach gives him away. Shouyou chuckles, and there’s a hand on his shoulder. ( _Has he been inching closer to me this whole time?_ ) “Sounds like the sooner the better. Come on. My treat.”

They start walking again, only this time Gintoki doesn’t linger back quite as far, thumbing the fabric of the sword hilt. “You can’t buy me, you know."

Shouyou nods. “Most worthwhile things you can’t.”

And there’s nothing Gintoki can say to that.

* * *

The restaurant is tucked into a small village branching off town, a little dilapidated but so’s just about everything out in the country. Gintoki almost trips over a wooden pail when he and Shouyou enter.

“Ah, sorry about that,” what must be the owner excuses. He and a teenage girl—his sister, probably—are bustling about cleaning things. “The roof leaks, and my grandmother insists it’ll storm tonight.”

“Gonna be a bad one, too,” a woman huddled over a hearth grouses. She’s got the thickest Kamigata accent Gintoki’s ever heard.* “When you get to my age, your knees tell you things. Up to our ankles in water, I’ll bet.”

Gintoki rolls his eyes. The sky looks innocuous enough, but Shouyou chimes in with a nauseatingly polite, “Ah, is that so?” while the sister directs them to a table. Gintoki doesn’t fight it (Free food's the best kind.), and soon enough, she’s rattling off the menu options.

“What’s the most expensive thing you guys offer?” Gintoki interrupts while cleaning out his ear.

The girl blinks at him once. Twice. “That would be our kamo nanba soba. But there are cheaper optio—“

“I’ll take that one.”

The girl’s appalled by his rudeness; Shouyou, on the other hand, remains the picture of composure. “Sounds good,” he chirps, and now it’s Gintoki’s turn to be shocked. “As for me…hmm. It’s been a long time since I’ve had cha soba, but I’ve been meaning to try jinenjo for even longer.* Which should I choose….?” He fixes his eyebrows into an indecisive expression that only breaks when a coin hits the table.

“He’ll take the second one,” Gintoki says, returning the koban coin to his sleeve.

Shouyou approves quickly, seemingly a lot more interested in Gintoki now, and the girl patters off. “You’re quite the enigma, you know that?”

“Explain what an ‘enigma’ is and I’ll tell ya.”

Shouyou laughs like Gintoki’s pulling his leg. “You just seem so confident is all,” he waves. “Didn’t take you for someone who left things up to chance.”

Gintoki frowns blandly, grabbing a pair of chopsticks from the container. “Keeps things interesting. That’s all.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

Gintoki fumbles, and when he catches the chopsticks, they slam on the table louder than he intended. “…You talk too much,” he grumbles.

Shouyou’s posture is good-natured as he leans back in his chair. “Just trying to put the pieces together. Don’t think anything of it. Although you’re right—“ The man retrieves a set of chopsticks for himself. “—I guess it has been a while since I’ve talked to anyone. It’s good to have company, even if they’re a bit of a brat.”

Gintoki chokes on his own spit.

“Oh look,” Shouyou sing-songs. “Our food’s here.”

Once he has his bearings back, Gintoki declares, “You’re weird.”

“I sure hope so. Keeps things interesting.” Shouyou beams at the turn of phrase, then gives a quick prayer of thanks before digging in. Gintoki watches him with a twist to his mouth. He raises an eyebrow when Shouyou's smile falters suddenly. “Should’ve gotten the cha soba,” the man laments. It looks like he’s actually suffering from that one mouthful.

Gintoki glances at his own dish, then at Shouyou’s.

He exhales (“Don’t eat it if you don’t like it.”) and switches the bowls, wolfing down a clump of jinenjo noodles before Shouyou can protest. It’s so hot that he almost burns himself, but he’s too caught up in the euphoria of warm food to mind. “You’re right,” Gintoki manages as he packs more away. “Tastes like garbage.”

Shouyou barks out a laugh despite the glare of the restaurant owner, and Gintoki has the conscious thought that, if he relives this version of today, he might repeat the joke.

* * *

The rest of the day passes in similar fashion, Shouyou remaining equally as confusing as when Gintoki first met him. Although the boy reminds himself to be wary, it’s exhilarating to have something new. He’s never been in a school before, despite having seen them around, and Shouyou is on the right side of too excited about showing him everything.

Still, at the end of the day, Gintoki’s happy to return to the front entry where his sandals are waiting. (“Someone could steal ‘em,” he’d argued when he'd been instructed to remove them, but then Shouyou’d mentioned dinner and Gintoki supposed he’d have the shoes back tomorrow anyway….)

Gintoki tests his sandals against the dirt outside.

“You’re sure you won’t reconsider spending the night? There’s plenty of space for you, and I swear it’s no trouble….”

Gintoki gives Shouyou a once-over from where he’s hovering just outside the school gate. “What are you getting out of this?” it implies.

Sighing, Shouyou raises his hands in peace. “Fair enough. Just promise me you’ll come back tomorrow. I’ll be worried if you don’t.”

Gintoki shifts the sword behind his neck like a yoke. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Promise?” Shouyou holds out a hand, pinky extended, and Gintoki wears a curious expression. “Here.” Shouyou takes one of his hands, puppeting it so it matches, then locks their fingers together. “ _Now_ it’s a promise.”

Gintoki stares at his pinky while Shouyou ruffles his hair. “I’ll see you tomorrow then. Don’t get into trouble, and if you do, well, you know where to find me.”

Gintoki doesn’t look away. “…kay,” he says numbly, drifting down the dirt path away from the school. If Shouyou says something else, he doesn’t hear it, focused pinned on the instantiation of an oath. It’s not like Shouyou’d remember if he broke it, the boy reasons, wandering around for a nice place to rest his head. Something about the promise makes it feel sacred anyway.

An hour later and the environment’s fields and fields of freshly-harvested rice paddies, golden in the sunset glow. It’s tempting to plop down on the slope off the road and watch the clouds pass over the mountains, but somehow, Gintoki takes a detour through one of the fields and winds up turned clear around. He doesn’t even realize until he’s standing right back at the temple school.

Gintoki huffs through his nose, surprised at himself. He should’ve been paying more attention.

Regardless, the sun’s long since set by now, and deciding he needs _some_ place to rest, Gintoki clambers up a maple tree just outside the school grounds. He can barely see over the main wall from that vantage point, settling in against the hardwood with his cheek resting on the crossguard of his sword. Not the worst place he’s spent the night, he justifies as he glances into the compound. A candle is lit in one of the rooms off the garden, light pulsing there against the shoji doors in twos-and-fros. Gintoki finds his breaths slowing to match the rhythm until, gradually, the light darkens into a dream.

* * *

The sword’s gone once Gintoki wakes up on the battlefield. That’s no surprise, really, but he stays on his back just a little longer than the times before, watching the clouds shift and reminiscing on the feeling of a hand in his hair.

When a coin flip tells him to wait for Shouyou, Gintoki doesn’t disagree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *If you've ever seen those Japanese lucky cat statues--or Meowth's head, the coins they're featured with are these koban. (I'll call them "koban coins" for clarity's sake, but the "coin" part's already implied in the word "koban".) They were the currency of the Tokugawa era (1603-1868), but since its value fluctuated so sporadically, it's hard for even historians to guess how much one koban was worth at any point in time. Feudal governments minting their own coinage along with floods of counterfeits compounded the issue. By the end of the era, older counterfeits were ironically more valuable than the newly minted coins--which is why Gintoki doubts people will believe him if he were to try to trade anything for it. The best I can find is that, if it were the real deal, it'd be worth about 40 USD in current time.
> 
> *Geishas in training (Maiko) are required to wear very tall, sloped shoes called Okobo （おこぼ）until they graduate. The shoes are supposed to keep their kimono off the ground, but they still have to bunch up the ends when they walk. With kimono already being hard to walk in, I have to imagine one slip-up would be catastrophic.
> 
> *Funnily enough, the "saka" (坂）in Gintoki's family name is the same as the "saka" in an older spelling of Osaka（大坂）. I've heard two accounts on why Osaka's spelling was changed to the modern version（大阪）, but it didn't occur until after the start of the Meiji Era (1868); at this point in the story (I'm assuming 1850s), Osaka'd have still been using the traditional spelling. So, what Gintoki did here was mash Osaka (大坂; big hill ) together with the last part of Yoshida (田; [rice] field) to make Osakata (大坂田; big hill [rice] field, also read as "Osakada"). The "O" part in Japanese is often added to raise the status of something, which is what Shouyou corrected to bring us to "Sakata".
> 
> *The Kamigata/Kansai accent is really different from Tokyo's. At this time period as well, the Japanese language hadn't been streamlined yet (wouldn't happen until the Meiji Era), so tons of different versions of Japanese existed. Centuries of Tokugawan travel restrictions exacerbated that.
> 
> *In most regions, the dish Gintoki orders is called kamo nanban soba (soba using roasted duck, although there have been versions with rabbit and chicken), but in Kansai (where Osaka is), there’s a consonant shift that moves the “n”. It's usually much more expensive since the dish would require the restaurant to either raise their own ducks or hunt wild ones. The other soba dishes are cha soba (tea soba) and jinenjo soba (mountain yam soba, also called yamaimo soba). Although I’ve never had jinenjo soba, I've heard the noodles are more about texture as their flavor is relatively simple; you need a stronger broth to make the dish work.


	2. The Question of Today

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: There's the briefest implication of self-harm that doesn't happen and won't be a recurring element of this story.

Conversations with Shouyou are never the same. The man’s wide-traveled and well-read, coloring conversation with stories and places Gintoki’s never heard of let alone been to. Sometimes, Gintoki even prompts him with a question he’s already asked on another day just to hear a repeat of the answer, and on the occasion Shouyou asks something in turn—benign, light topics like his favorite season, Gintoki answers honestly.

(“Summer,” the boy says, pulling at a blade of grass. When he whistles into it, the sound echoes down the road.

“Any reason?”

“Just miss the sun and fireflies and things.” A row of low-hanging clouds roll by overhead, an uninspired blue-gray propelled by a November wind. The sun peeks out in the afternoon hours, but right now, it’s bland as can be. “Winter’s a pain,” Gintoki decides, holding the grassblade up. It rattles in his hand like cicada wings.

“Summer will come again,” Shouyou says, “even if it doesn’t feel like it now.”

Gintoki hums noncommittally. He lets the blade go, and it vanishes in the wind.)

That’s the usual vein of conversation, always harmless but dancing around something more personal. Neither ever dig, though. Shouyou seems to understand Gintoki’s past isn’t one he dwells on, and despite Gintoki not being the brightest, he’s worldly enough to know that it’s illegal to travel across borders: There’s no way Shouyou’s traveled so much without having skeletons in his closet.

Regardless, talking with him is still something to do. Gintoki thinks he’ll keep meeting with him—at least until it gets boring and he moves on to something else like he always does.

* * *

It doesn’t get boring.

Anymore, Gintoki doesn’t even bother waiting on the battlefield, instead marching straight up to the school gates and declaring that he’d like to join up. He always gets a kick out of the blatant shock on Shouyou’s face, searching left and right as if Gintoki’s parents will pop out of the bushes, but even before the confusion’s cleared up, Shouyou’s just as kind to him as anything other time they’ve met.

Some days they wander picking yuzu fruits off the trees, peeling them as they walk until the air’s tart and sour and their hands are scratched from the thorns; other days they head down to Old Man Nakayama’s and buy kabocha for fried rice (Shouyou never questions why Gintoki hides behind him just slightly.); and on the days when Gintoki’d rather do nothing at all, they simply lounge around the school, Shouyou talking excitedly about this or that or showing him the kendo supplies that makes the school feel like more than just a pipe dream.

It’s obvious it’s something Shouyou’s passionate about—being a teacher, that is. And as much as Gintoki’s quick to change the topic when he starts going on about _The Tale of Genji_ or _Essays in Idleness_ or God forbid the Battle of Shimonoseki _again_ , Gintoki wants to see Shouyou succeed.

“You’ll be a good teacher,” Gintoki muses aloud one day. He’s resting on the engawa in the sparse afternoon sun. Light’s sparkling through the leaves onto the garden pond like stars, and there’s a faint smoke smell from the stone hearth where dinner’s cooking.

“I _will_ be a good teacher?” Gintoki tilts his head to find Shouyou’s stopped mid-way through cutting a radish. “As of today, I am one,” the man corrects, gesturing between the both of them. There’s so much pride on his face that Gintoki can't help but to smile too.

Gintoki turns back as a bamboo water timer thunks in the garden. “Yeah. Guess so.”

The pre-winter trees rattle, and the dicing sounds pick back up. Listening to the rhythm, Gintoki closes his eyes and takes it all in.

* * *

Dozens upon dozens of lazy afternoons are passed that way. In hindsight, Gintoki supposes it was only a matter of time before something went wrong.

It happens early in the morning. He and Shouyou are walking to Old Man Nakayama’s again, out to get lunch and then practice kendo at Gintoki’s request. The dirt path is beaten down and crunches beneath their sandals, and a swath of trees stand to their left, the last vestiges of reds and orange crinkling. Gintoki’s only half-watching, content breathing in the morning day, when a winged shadow swoops down. “Shouyou, look!” he shouts, grabbing the sleeve of the man’s coat. “A hawk!”

The bird snatches something from the grass and beats its wings until it lands on a branch. Its prey squirms but can’t get free.

“Looks like a mouse. Sure wouldn’t want to be him, huh?” Gintoki turns around to see Shouyou observing him curiously. Something about it gives him pause. “What is it? Something on my face?”

“How did you know my name?”

Instantly, Gintoki’s expression is wiped clean, the hawk’s shriek sounding behind.

He didn’t….

They hadn’t yet….

Shouyou doesn’t look upset, just interested, but Gintoki’s first thought is that he’s just wrecked it. There’s no way he can explain the knowledge away. “I…“ he starts, gaze flicking to and from the man’s face while panic burns holes through his chest. “I…”

He takes a step back.

(Just come back tomorrow. Just come back tomorrow.)

That one step turns into a blatant move to run, but there’s a hand on his arm before he can do so much as put another foot down. It’s gentle, like Shouyou always is; Gintoki stops more from the contact than the force.

“You don’t have to tell me,” the man clarifies. (He must be able to feel the way he’s shaking.) “I was just wondering. I’m not very well-known here.”

Not knowing what else to do, Gintoki turns back. He still can’t look him in the eye.

“You’re probably hungry,” Shouyou comments, as if the slip-up never happened. “Let’s go out for lunch instead. It’d be quicker than cooking, and there’s a restaurant nearby I’ve been meaning to try.” He kneels down to his height, and as much as Gintoki knows it’s for the sole purpose of calming him down, it only makes him feel worse. “Have you ever had soba?”

“Once or twice,” Gintoki admits. His head’s still swimming, pulsing like a drum, but Shouyou takes his hand then and it’s easier to just follow along than to think.

On the walk there, Gintoki becomes immensely familiar with the craftsmanship of his sandals, his sight on them breaking only when Shouyou speaks next. “Here we are,” he says, softer than normal, like he can tell Gintoki’s still a mess.

They enter the restaurant to find the same old lady in the corner complaining about nonexistent rain, and the teenage girl directs them to the exact table they’d sat at in the past. “Just water,” Gintoki orders, curled in on himself.

Shouyou amends it to water and a light sansai soba, then scratches his chin in thought. Gintoki already knows what he’s debating between. “Get the cha one,” the boy says.

The air around Shouyou spikes with surprise, but he follows in step, testing what to him is only a prediction. When the food arrives and Shouyou tries it, he seems impressed. “You were right. This was exactly what I wanted.”

If Gintoki could sink through the bench he’s on, he would.

Shouyou places a set of chopsticks in front of him. “At the very least, eat half of it. The owners will be mad at me otherwise.” The man smiles encouragingly, but Gintoki can’t do much more than poke at his food.

Shouyou doesn’t seem bothered by the silence that envelopes them, staring out the window between bites. He’s waiting for him, Gintoki knows.

The boy swallows hard like the saliva’s cracking his throat. “Do you…” he tries, fishing out some noodles only to put them back in. “Do you ever feel…stuck?”

“Like in the mud or…?”

The comment’s so unexpected that Gintoki chuckles, albeit a bit helplessly. “More like in life,” he says, to which Shouyou drones in understanding. He’s still looking out the window next to them, tracing the cloud shadows that sweep over the mountains.

“For a long time, yes, I felt like that. I still do, sometimes, but you’re awfully young for those kinds of thoughts.” Shouyou chews pensively. “Guess it’s a fortunate thing you have a teacher you can ask advice from… whatever your name is.”

“Sakata Gintoki.” The boy rests his head in a hand. “And you’d think I were crazy.”

“You struck me as the type who didn’t care what other people think.”

Gintoki’s eyes turn sad. The “not everyone” goes unsaid.

At that, Shouyou picks up his cup of tea. “Well,” he starts, “I guess every problem has a beginning. Let’s go from there and see what I can’t do. You might be surprised how much good talking can do for these things.”

Gintoki looks around the shop. No one’s listening, so if he was looking for an excuse not to cough up his story, there isn’t one. He sticks out a pinky anyway. “Promise you won’t think I’m nuts?”

Without hesitation, Shouyou takes it. “You have my word.”

Shouyou makes to break away, but when Gintoki doesn’t release, he lets their fingers stay intertwined. “I don’t know how it started,” is the first way Gintoki can think to begin the story, running into the explanation head first to keep himself from chickening out. “But I…I wake up a ways out from here every morning. And maybe I’ll go to sleep in Osaka or the woods or by a lake, but I always wake up in the exact same place.”

Shouyou cocks his head faintly.

“Nothing’s changed—when I wake up, I mean,” Gintoki stammers, avoiding spelling it out as best he can. “At the same place. At the same time. And it’s…the same. This granny’s always here and it never rains. That mouse will probably always get caught by that hawk, and…” Gintoki tightens their pinkies. “And before I show up at school, like I did today, you’re always about to go look for a demon.”

By the way Shouyou’s breathing is coming a little too evenly, he’s doing his best not to show his surprise.

“Today is _always_ today,” Gintoki clarifies. “That’s…that’s what I’m trying to say.”

A collection of pots ring in the kitchen.

Slowly, Shouyou sets his tea down, bending to get into Gintoki’s line of vision. The boy acquiesces and doesn’t bother to hide the stress wormed into his shoulders. “You mean each day...is the same for you?”

Gintoki dips his head, not trusting his voice. “It hasn’t always been, but yeah.”

Shouyou digests the information, working his jaw slightly. “I’ve seen a lot of things in my life, but that… well….” He snaps his mouth closed, looking more like he was just trying to keep the conversation alive than form a coherent thought. “I take it you’ve tried everything, then—to fix it?”

Gintoki’s attention flits to the katana at Shouyou’s hip. The hilt shines. “Not everything,” he admits.

Shouyou’s face darkens, something he’s never seen in earnest, and the man grasps the back of Gintoki’s hand with his free one. “OK,” he breathes shakily. “OK. We’ll think of something.”

_We._

“You...actually believe me?”

Shouyou makes a face at that, bittersweet. It’s an answer and then some, and the tension slips from Gintoki's muscles like a cut rope.

“It must be a very lonely time for you," Shouyou continues sympathetically, "although I suppose I should be flattered that you’d want to spend a number of days with someone like me.”

Gintoki flinches, having purposefully left that out. “Not like I've had many options,” he mumbles quickly. “I’m a nobody, and nobody wants to hang out with a nobody.”

“So it's just us two nobodies against the world? I like those odds.” Shouyou pats his hand, then gestures to Gintoki’s bowl with his chin. “It might be harder on an empty stomach, though. You eat. I can think for the both of us.”

Nodding, Gintoki finally pulls his hand away, retrieving his chopsticks and forcing himself to get just a bit of food down. It’s lukewarm by now, but it helps the nausea that’s been clinging to him.

Between bites, Shouyou asks questions here and there, then here and there on the way back to school, until it’s late at night and they frustratingly haven’t discovered any patterns or solutions.

Shouyou murmurs under his breath, jotting down ideas at a desk while Gintoki lays on the floor next to him. He’s seen Shouyou’s room a few times before but only in passing. Then again, there’s not much to see, just a few calligraphy paintings and books. It's fitting for a traveler, Gintoki supposes, but the more consumed Shouyou seems with his dilemma, the more Gintoki starts wondering about those demons the man has following him. If the two aren’t somehow related.

It’s just…he’s never seen Shouyou so grave about anything.

“Maybe it’s karma,” Gintoki offers between the waves of candlelight washing over them. “This is just the way it is.”

“You’re a child. You can’t have done anything bad enough to deserve that.” Shouyou crosses off a note with fervor. “There has to be an answer.”

Gintoki rolls over, getting a good view of the man’s face. The boy’s starting to feel guilty for telling him.

“If this happens again tomorrow, you find me, all right?”

Gintoki doesn’t answer, instead poking the man’s knee. “It’s late,” he says. Shouyou glances up suddenly. It seems he hadn’t realized what time it was; the candle wax is almost out.

The man grimaces and tugs at his bangs while he sets his brush down. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he repeats. “It must be something we’ve overlooked. Something missing, perhaps.” Shouyou shakes his head and retrieves his brush to scribble down more ideas. They must not match what Gintoki’s told him as they get crossed off too.

Shouyou's the smartest person he knows, and if he can't think of anything, then maybe Gintoki really is stuck this way. That life's stalled and he's caught in the underflow.

Gintoki shifts to sit up. “Shouyou, it’s OK. Seriously. I’m used to it.” He puts on the best smile he can, the one Shouyou wears all the time that makes him instantly feel better. He must do it wrong, though, because there’s the press of a thumb beneath his eyes and he realizes the skin there is wet.

“Don’t,” Shouyou says quietly. “You don’t need to put on a brave face for me.”

Gintoki’s smile falters, just a bit, then completely as his head dips forward enough to thud against the man's chest. “You don’t even know me,” he manages as a hand combs through his hair.

“Do I need to to want to help?”

It’s instinctual to say yes. There’s always a motive. It’s how the world operates for everyone except Shouyou, it seems, and Gintoki thinks that’s the part of him that he understands the least, the part that keeps him coming back. He’s been expecting, on some level, to find an ugly, twisted piece underneath all the kindness that takes without giving instead of the opposite. But all that's happened is that Gintoki’s made one good, honest friend at the only time he can’t keep them. 

Shouyou’s summer, and right now, neither have ever felt further away.

“You know,” a voice rumbles against his forehead, “when I first saw you today, I wondered if we hadn’t known each other before. In another life, maybe. I think I’d be very sad to go this life without you in it as well.”

Gintoki squeezes his eyes shut, fighting the warmth spreading through his skull. He already knows what's happening, as much as Shouyou doesn't.

“So you’ll come back tomorrow…”

A crow caws.

“…won’t you?”

Gintoki doesn’t promise anything, just snaps out a hand. “Shouyou!” he yells, but all he meets is blood-slicked skin and daybreak.


End file.
